Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.
The FCC, on September 25th, issued permission for a rescue attempt on Intelsat’s ‘drifting’ Galaxy 25 satellites with a Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV/Space Tug) over the next few days. The FCC is keen on the whole exercise being seen as an experimental mission. In its permission, the FCC stated: “After an extended period of drifting, […]
Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism business, Virgin Galactic, suffered a bank’s serious downgrade to its share price. Morgan Stanley had given Virgin Galactic a share price target of $35. That price has been slashed to just $5 in the bank’s latest report issued on September 24th. The bank was blunt and cited ongoing challenges for […]
EchoStar, the Charlie Ergen-backed business that owns the Dish US pay-TV operator, says that negotiations which have taken place over the past weeks with certain debt-holders and which would have led to a financial reconstruction have failed to reach agreement. The negotiations were primarily with members of a group represented by Milbank. Despite this setback, […]
Rivada Space Networks has had an eventful couple of years, filled with litigation between various parties over ownership, frequency rights and disputes between CEO Declan Ganley and former business partners. To its credit it has managed to sail through these challenges, but one has to read between the lines to ascertain whether it can proceed […]
The ambitious IRIS2 satellite proposal for a constellation of European low Earth orbiting satellites is facing further challenges, not least from the German government. While not confirming the reported final cost of some €12 billion, a response last week to a question in Germany’s parliament (from the CDU/CSU group) talked about the break down in […]
Rivada Space Networks issued a press release to coincide with Euroconsult’s Paris Space Business Week which said that it is “partnering” with Peraton, “a next-generation national security company and transformative enterprise IT provider” who will now work with Rivada once its planned 300 satellite constellation is in place. However, there was no news on whether […]
Starlink announced last week that it had won a contract from United Airlines to equip around 1,000 of their aircraft with Starlink broadband equipment. Availability will not be overnight as fitting of the Starlink antennas will not start until 2025. United says that access to WiFi and broadband will then be free for all passengers. […]
September 12th saw a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flawlessly launch five high-performance BlueBird satellites for AST SpaceMobile from Cape Canaveral. The five craft, once they are deployed safely in their correct orbits which itself will take a few weeks, will then be tested by about 2,000 testers scattered around the Earth and then commence beta-test […]
AT&T’s CEO John Stankey has praised AST SpaceMobile in an interview on CNBC, saying: “Satellite constellations are going to be great. People are going to have always on connectivity, there will be no more [dead spaces] and this is why we are doing what we are doing with AST which will make sure that your […]
SpaceX’s Starlink factory in Bastrop, Texas, is now the company’s largest hardware manufacturing unit, and is in business and expanding further. Local comments suggest the factory, which opened in July 2023 and is adjacent to Elon Musk’s Boring Company, is approximately double in size. The Texas factory is capable of producing 90,000 Starlink broadband terminals […]
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